Luca Harrington (Wānaka, 21) has made New Zealand freeski history in France this morning, winning the 2025 FIS Freeski Big Air Crystal Globe as the top athlete on the 2025 FIS Big Air World Cup Tour.
This marks the first FIS Freeski Crystal Globe ever won by a Kiwi, an exceptional achievement that Harrington earned from his consistent performance on the Big Air World Cup circuit this Northern Hemisphere season.
An ecstatic Harrington said; “This is absolutely unbelievable, coming into this season I didn’t think this was even possible. To be standing here holding this globe means the world to me and I need to thank everyone who has helped me along this journey to get here, I am so grateful for this moment.”
Harrington finished in third place at the sixth and final FIS Freeski Big Air World Cup in Tignes this morning NZT, putting down a ‘never been done’ switch right triple corked 1800 with an esco grab on his first run, which was the highest scoring single trick of the competition. Harrington combined that trick with a right triple corked 1980 safety grab for a total score of 187.00 points, which earned him a place on the tightly fought podium in third.
Mac Forehand of the USA finished in second place, just 0.5 points ahead of Harrington. Italian freeskier Miro Tabanelli took the win with a score of 188.25, just minutes after his younger sister won the women’s competition.
This was the final Big Air World Cup of the season and the overall standings were confirmed and the Crystal Globe awarded. Out of the five Big Air World Cups that Harrington dropped into this season, he finished on the podium in four of them (two wins, a second and a third) and just off the podium in fourth in his fifth event in Beijing in December 2024.
Reflecting on that fourth place finish, Harrington explained; “I think China kept me hungry, being so close the podium was tough and I wanted to be on there so I worked hard, trained hard and kept the consistency up. Everything really worked out this year and I am so happy.”
The only other athlete with four podium finishes this season is Matej Svancer of Austria, but with significant points still awarded for fourth place finishes, Harrington took the Crystal Globe win by 39 points over Svancer. Today’s world cup winner Miro Tabanelli of Italy finished third in the overall standings.
Harrington, alongside teammate Ben Barclay, are the top two qualifiers into the Tignes FIS Freeski Slopestyle World Cup set to go down tonight NZT. Ruby Star Andrews will be competing in the women’s competition. This will be the final event of the 2025 FIS Freeski Park & Pipe World Cup Tour and the decider for the overall Freeski Crystal Globe.
New Zealand has previously won two FIS Crystal Globes in snowboarding – Tiarn Collins won the 2022 Slopestyle World Cup standings and Zoi Sadowski-Synnott won the 2021 Big Air World Cup standings. Alpine ski racing superstar Alice Robinson is currently leading the 2025 Giant Slalom World Cup standings, with the final event set to go down on the 26th of March.
